History of Blue Eyes
by something like human
Summary: Odin Lowe resurrects himself to get some action with the Preventers. Things get interesting when he meets the young agents.
1. 1

Title: History of Blue Eyes

Author: Something Like Human

Rating: PG13 (to be safe)

Warnings: Post EW, Preventers, Author resurrection of characters and tweaking of history/timeline

Notes: This prologue is almost a year old and has been sitting in my notebook since I wrote it and I finally typed it up.  I should be working other stuff but my muses aren't listening to my demands to work. They've taken a fancy to resurrecting this.  So here it is.

Ten years was long enough for me to be retired, I decided.  Without the war to follow, I was becoming bored with life.  Men like me are not made for times of peace.  Although, with age comes wisdom to understand that the world as a whole did not crave the excitement of battle. Things would be a whole lot different if I understood that twenty-some year ago.  Then again, back then, there were not organizations like the Preventers there to stop me.  That realization led me to resurrect myself to contact someone who would remember my name in a good light.

"It will be an honor to have you with the Preventers, Sir.  My years with OZ were full of stories of you in the beginnings of the organization.  General Treize often spoke of you as if you were a god, as the one who single-handedly started the war."

"Lady Une, there were many factors that lead to that war.  I only had a small part at the start and regret that there was nothing I could do to end it," I explain to my new superior.

"Well, will you at least agree that your last assignment for OZ was the catalyst that brought all those factors together?"

"Unfortunately," I admit.

"I'm sorry, I forget that it was the reason you abandoned OZ to do your own work," she apologized in haste.  I had not realized that my days in OZ had been elevated to legend status.  Then again, those like Une, Zechs, Noin and even Treize had been trained on my accomplishments.

"I'll have Noin here escort you to the division you will work with.  They are what you could call our 'elite' group; the ones who had more extensive training than normal."

I nod and wait for Une to call Noin to her office to baby-sit me.  I barely kept my amusement to myself as the young woman entered.  I had left OZ the year before she was born if I remembered correctly.  I only knew that because my retirement years were spent following the activities of my contemporaries.

She spoke to me as we left the office.  "You'll be in the same division as me and the 'boys'."

I chuckle at her sounding like a harried mother of toddlers.  "You make it sound like I'll be with a bunch of children."

She laughs, "They're definitely not children.  But before you joined, I was the oldest – even if I'm only older than Preventer Wind by a few weeks."

"Wind?"  I ask to make conversation.  "A code name, I assume?"

"Yes, the entire division uses code names.  You'll be working with Preventers Wind, Sand, Rock, Day, Night, and Sky. Along with myself, Preventer Fire.  It'll be good to even out the numbers.  Wind and I are partners as are Rock and Sand.  The other three are together."

We stop outside a door for a moment I turn to her and ask, "So when do I get my code name?"

"Oh my!  Wow!" She gasps.  It is the most feminine thing I have seen her do.  I swear she is swooning. 

"What?"

"Blue… your eyes are very blue," she stammers.  "Those old vids of you I saw back as a cadet did not do you justice."

"Um… thanks," I smile nervously.  "So this business of code names…"

"Oh yeah, we mostly choose our own.  Except Night and Day – they named each other."

"Oh really?"  
Noin chuckles.  "Yeah, Night wanted to be called Preventer Wood but even he couldn't say it with a straight face.  So Day dubbed him Night for his expertise in Stealth tactics.  Not to be outdone, Night retorted by calling him Day for his lack of subtly."

"Amusing, I can't wait to meet them."  
We enter the department and I am surprised.  It appears to be just like the rest of the offices I had been through so far.  Evidence and pictures of the latest case are strewn throughout.  It is the heads bent over the evidence that shock me.  The straight-backed, platinum blonde could be none other than Zechs Marquis.  The youthful blonde beside him discussing a report looked familiar also.  A tall brunette regarded me dispassionately.  Another brunette quit his wild gesticulations he had been making to an Asian boy when they noticed my entrance.

"Hey boys! I've got someone for you to meet.  Blue here is going to be joining our little circus."

"Aw-c'mon Fuega, you know Rocky over here is the only circus clown," the one brunette protests as he points to the other brunette.

"Side-show then, Night," she rephrases.  "And don't call me Fuega."

"Sure thing, Lucy!" He replies cheekily.  "So who's he anyways?"

I smile; things will sure be interesting if that character was the expert in stealth.  I think I should be worried. 

"I was saving introductions for when we are all here.  Where's Sky?"

"In the can."

The Asian youth speaks sharply in what sounds like Chinese to Night getting a mock repentant look in response.

"Fire," the younger of the two blondes explains.  "Sky should be back any second now so you can tell us who our new teammate is."

"Odin Lowe."

I practically jump out of my skin at the sound of the cold voice off to my side.  I am speechless as I get my first look at Preventer Sky.

"You know him?" someone asks only to get a slight nod.  This causes the whole group to look at me for confirmation.  I look back to the newcomer and speak briefly in Russian.

"Bastard!" He growls as he shoves me hard and pushes past me to run out the door.  The others spring to action as I stand mutely in shock.  Zechs barks orders to the others. "Rock and Day, secure Lowe. Night, after Sky; Sand – get Une and tell her what happened."

I get shoved into a chair as the Asian glares at me.  My guide, Noin, looks around as the rest of the boys scurry to comply.  Zechs collapses into another chair.

"What the hell…" he mutters.

Noin finally shakes her head in defeat.  "Will someone tell me what Mr. Lowe said that set Sky off like a firecracker? You know, not everyone knows every language spoken in the Earth Sphere."

To my surprise, it was the previously silent brunette that answers.  "He said 'Hello Junior'."

####

A/N: I don't know if Odin has blue eyes or not, but literary license says he does. There's a reason beyond the "I say so" one I just gave but I won't go into it now.


	2. 2

Title: History of Blue Eyes

Author: Something Like Human

Rating: PG13

Warnings: Post EW, Preventers, Author resurrection of characters and tweaking of history/timeline, nothing but strong friendship/brotherhood between the pilots (as in if you want to see hints of anything more, squint really, really hard. Sorry yaoi-ophiles.)

Notes: Sorry it's taken me a year to write this. IRL has been very busy. This chapter is almost totally exposition…sorry no action. My supreme apologies for not writing sooner.

So here I sat in a slightly wobbly desk chair that squeaked as I twisted it around slowly. I was taking my time looking to those left in the room. Zechs leaned against a desk with his arms crossed looking impatient. Noin was seated in another office chair looking like a harried mother of triplets. Agents Day and Rock were just standing to either side of me dividing their attention between watching me and the door.

It was almost unbelievable that one of Une's top Preventers was my little protégé. Then again, the boy was my protégé; he was quite capable of surviving to reach adulthood. The question of how, though, was still ringing in my mind. All records showed that no child left the colony after the attack when I hacked their system. Albeit, it was a while after we were separated when I was able to do that.

Moments later, the Lady herself came running into the room. "Lowe, I see you've been busy on your first day."

"My life's never dull," I retort.

"I think you'll have some explaining to do," Une stated coolly. "Preventer Sky would have only been about 8 years old when you supposedly died on that satellite."

"Wasn't that the one General Treize's mobile suit got shot down?" Zechs asked looking at Noin.

"Yeah, he jumped in front of me to stop me from being hit by the blast caused by…" Noin stops in thought for a moment and shock is evident on her face. "The blast was caused by a little boy."

"That would have been Junior," I explain. "He was my partner on that little adventure."

"Dude…did you know that you shot Treize years before the war started?"

I had to look over Une's shoulder to see that Agents Night and Sky had returned. I could see my young protégé regard the exuberant Agent Night like he said something asinine and then respond icily, "I didn't care at the time who I was shooting at. It was my last job before the old man was ditching me. I found out later that I was the only one who held up their end of the deal, since he supposedly died before he took out his mark."

"You saw me, kid, we were set up," I explained. "I was shot up like Swiss cheese. I was just lucky in the fact that someone found me in that uniform we stole and took me to the hospital thinking I was one of their troops."

"Lucky you."

"Now Heero, give the man a break! He was shot!" The brown haired Preventer exclaimed.

"No he is right. I told him that I was leaving him on the colony to live his own life." I paused a moment finally processing what the young man had said. "Did you just call him Heero?"

Une cleared her throat and held up her hand not allowing anyone else to speak. "Agent Sky's code name during the wars was 'Heero Yuy'. He has chosen to continue using that name."

"Heero Yuy… How strangely ironic," I mused out loud. "So you go by Heero, Junior. I guess that's better than having everyone call you Junior."

"Junior is not my name," The young man replies with eyes just as cold as they were when he was a small child.

"No, I'll give you that. 'Junior' is usually only used when you share the exact same name as your father and you don't." I watched him for a minute while he thought about what I told him. I had always called him 'Junior' when we were together even though that really was not his name. He did not like it when he was a child and I could tell that he still did not like it as an adult.

"You say that like you know what his name was before," the stern looking Asian youth accused. "As far as anyone of us knows, he was a war orphan much like Agents Rock and Night."

"Junior… I mean Heero," I corrected myself. "Was never an orphan. He still isn't."

"What do you mean?" Junior growled at me. Heero, I had to really think to remember to call him Heero. He pushed past Commander Une so he could stare me in the eyes.

"The name on your birth certificate reads 'Odin Hiroshi Lowe'."

"Why should he believe you?" The short-haired blonde demanded. I could understand their apprehension with me. They had no reason to believe me.

"So you're saying that you're really his Dad?" Agent Night inquired looking between Heero and me. The wiry young man leaned in close looking like he was trying to perform a retinal scan on us or something. That young man has no sense of person space or something. "Hey, they've got the same eyes!"

"If you want proof, I'll give you a contact in the records department at the hospital in Japan where he was born," I offered. I doubted that they would believe even that though.

"Japan? I thought he was from L1," the proximity-impaired youth gasped. "I thought he was a colonist."

"Odin is from L1, a colonist," Heero explained. "That is why I just assumed that was where I was from. We moved around too much to call anywhere else home."

I nodded. The boy was correct. "I was a colonist but your mother is Earth-side born and bred."

A silence descended in the room. I looked at the other Preventer's faces and tried to read their expressions. For the most part, all I saw was disdain and distrust. I finally looked back at Commander Une. She just shook her head.

"I think whatever needs said requires Lowe and Yuy some privacy. I know the rest of you need to get back to your case load," she commanded. She turned to my son and me and continued, "There is a conference room down the hall that is not being used. Feel free to make use of it if you need it."

tbc


	3. 3

Title: History of Blue Eyes

Author: Something Like Human

Rating: teen (13+)

Warnings: Post EW, Preventers, Author resurrection of characters and tweaking of history/timeline, nothing but strong friendship/brotherhood between the pilots (as in if you want to see hints of anything more, squint really, really hard. Sorry yaoi-ophiles.)

My son and I followed Lady Une down the hallway and into a conference room. The room was dim but there was a large window overlooking the Preventers grounds a few floors below. It was landscaped like any other government building so it really was not very exciting. But sometimes, it was just nice to see naturally growing grass. I walked up to the window and placed my hand on the frame. I stood for a second soaking up the sunlight.

After a moment, I turned and looked at Heero again. The young man was leaning with his back against the wall right next to the door. From where he was standing, it looked like he wanted nothing more than to escape this room and run away from me. His body appeared stiff and his face looked as hard and cold as stone. He had never been a happy child; he tended more towards being sullen and quiet. I could tell already that growing up had not changed that in him.

"You could at least say something, Son."

He raised his eyes to glare at me. They were that same startling blue that they were when he was small but they had more intensity behind them. He had aged a hundred years in the ten that I had left him. I wanted nothing more than to hug him like I had when he was just a toddler but I instinctively knew that I would probably be hurt if I attempted it.

"Look, Heero," I started as I walked closer to him. I made an effort to use his chosen name. When I gave it a thought, it was actually his middle name and I doubted that he would ever want to go by his first name since at that moment; he looked like he hated me. "I am sorry."

"Sorry?"

"I'm not going to try to give you excuses or lame explanations," I explained to him. "My apologies are really all I can offer you."

"I really should have shot you back on X-18999."

"That would have saved us both a lot of time and effort," I replied wryly. I leaned against the wall near him but still an arm's reach away. At the quirk of his eyebrow, which I took for an indication to explain what I just said, I continued, "I knew that the job was a set up for me but it was also the best opportunity to get you somewhere that was at least partially safe."

"Safe?" The young man scoffed pushing off of the wall and walking towards the window. "We had destroyed much of the city on that colony and the idiots running it practically flooded the place trying to put out the fires. Not to mention, that was where Dr. J found me. And let's just say that going from being a hit man's assistant to being a terrorist was a big improvement."

I let what he had told me sink in as Heero stood looking out the window. The little bits of information that had been present throughout the conversation here and back with the others finally fell into a semblance of order. "So you were a Gundam Pilot."

"Not exactly an idyllic childhood," he snidely replied.

"Again, all I can do for you is to apologize," I sighed. "I can't give you back your childhood, as much as I want to."

"No, you can't give it back," my son practically barked at me. His anger was evident as he raises those piercing eyes to me again. "Although, I am beginning to see that you lied to me; you told me that 'space took everything away from me'. You were the one who took everything away from me – my own father."

"You would have had a worse childhood if I wouldn't have taken you from your home," I explained. I raked a hand through my hair and tried to come up with an easy way to explain everything. "It was because I was from space, a colonist that your grandfather did not approve of me. It was that and the fact that I wasn't Japanese, obviously."

I pulled out one of the room's many matching chairs and sank myself down into it. They were definitely corporate type chairs that I swear are made to keep a person awake because of how uncomfortable they are. I motioned for Heero to take a chair also but he just continued to stand in front of the window. The intensity of his glare makes me wonder if he's ever done interrogations before because he would be very good at it.

"He was a very proud man that unfortunately had a very beautiful daughter," I continued cursing myself for making it sound like I was a lecherous beast. I could not hold my son's gaze so I let my eyes drift downwards to hazily stare at the carpet. "She was barely seventeen and I had just a few months past my eighteenth birthday. So we both were very much too young for anything serious. I was Earthside between assignments and we met during a spring festival in town."

I remembered how beautiful she looked with her hair pinned up and a kimono on. I also recalled how tiny she was next to me when we bumped into each other in the crowd. I could still imagine the faint gloss on her lips as they parted when she turned her face upwards to look at me. I recalled how later, she told me that she fell in love with the blue of my eyes because she had never seen eyes that color up close.

"Kaiya had just started at the University. She was so brilliant it was amazing. We started seeing more of each other between her classes so that her father would not find out. He was very strict with her and had great expectations for her. I don't blame him for that, she had great potential. But like the teenagers we were, we didn't see the consequences of what we were doing. I had to leave shortly after that; I had another assignment but I promised her that I would return."

I lifted my eyes to regard my son again. Now he was perched slightly on the window sill and watching me with what appeared to be mild interest. I took it as a small victory since he was actually giving me a chance to explain everything. I cleared my throat and picked up where I had left off, "The assignment was followed by another, then another, and another. I was kept off the Earth for over two years. There was so much going on in the colonies at the time.

"When I returned, I could not find Kaiya at the University. When I gained access to their computers in an effort to see when she had either graduated or transferred, I found that she had withdrew a few months after I had left her. When I did gain information on her, I found that she had been cloistered in her family's home and rarely seen in two years. That was when I also discovered what our affair had created. I shocked to say the least to see records of an 'Odin Hiroshi Lowe' listed at the local hospital."

"So you had never tried to contact her in over two years?"

I finally had a response from him. Although his words were spoken like ice and full of reproach, I was slightly relieved that was intent on hearing the truth from me. "I couldn't for fear of her father finding out. I had given her a way to contact me but had never heard form her. Truthfully, I figured that she had gotten over me and moved on with her life after how long it had been. I only looked for her on the off chance that she hadn't. It had been a lonely two years for me since I moved from assignment to assignment without having enough time to form any sort of personal relationships whatsoever."

"So you never really loved her – my mother?" He asked. I would have never expected him to say that. He appeared to be the type that would not worry about the trivialities of love. Maybe, just maybe, his heart was not as ice cold as his eyes.

"I did lover her – and I believe at some point that she did love me in return. It was a young love, a naïve love, though," I confessed. "We did not see the consequences of our love and the difficult choices it would force us to make."

"Well, obviously you chose to leave her and take me," Heero downright spat. I could see the hurt in his eyes and I knew that he needed to learn the truth of situation.

"I went to her father after that – seeing as I was a bit older and wiser then. I tried to make up for what I had done, but he was a hard man and very traditional," I stopped when he gave me a look that he already heard me say it a million times. "As you can guess, I was not well received."

"What did you expect, old man?" Heero replied snidely.

I snorted at his remark. He always got down to the point. I took a moment and just looked at my son. He was full grown now, not the tiny eight-year old as he was when I left him. His dark hair was still hanging in his eyes like he needed a hair cut. I always marveled at the color of it, not my ash blond and not her black – but almost a mix of the two. It looked like one had added a bit of cream to a strong cup of coffee and stirred until it was a deep brown. His eyes were another story. They were the almond shape of his mothers and the blue of mine. Genetically, that would be almost impossible so I had always suspected that somewhere in his grandfather's ancestry was someone not as Japanese as he would like to admit.

"Long story short, my boy, I had the choice to take you or give you up forever."

"So you took me from my home and family and made me into your little assistant."

Ouch. I saw that I needed to explain a little better than that. "You see… Heero, it is never that simple. I took you because it would give your mother another chance at life. Her father had found a man, which coincidentally met his standards, who would take Kaiya as his wife but not if she still had you. He wanted the little mixed blood kid to disappear. So it was either I take you away from Japan or you were going to be sent to an orphanage."

He went completely still where he was leaning against the window. I watched him slowly draw a deep breath and then another. It was like watching a computer process a long string of information, the machine could not run anything else while it was processing. Then slowly he just deflated. His body relaxed and he sat fully on the sill. He ran a hand through his hair while looking at the floor. I remained silent to let him have his space to think.

"This is hard," he finally muttered. When I looked at him, he went on, "I wanted to blame you for every bad thing in my life."

I waited for him to go on but he did not. So I tried to get him to talk again, "So you don't blame me now?"

He snorted, "Not for everything. Don't get me wrong, old man, I still hold you at fault for a lot of things, just not everything."

"Well, that's good to know," I replied with a slight chuckle. "So who do you blame?"

"I don't know any more," Heero sighed. He rose from the window sill and pulled out one of the chairs at the table that was a little ways down from where I was seated. He sunk into the chair. "There were too many factors involved to blame one person. I don't know…"

I listened as he stumbled with his thoughts and finished them for him. "You don't know who to hate; what direction you need to focus your hurt feelings on."

"Yeah," my son nodded and then smirked at me. "Trying to prove that the elderly are wise?"

"Can it, brat! You're not too old for me take you over my knee," I teased which made him snort in response.

"So what do we do now? We should get to work on our cases, but…"

"What do we do now that we found each other?" I clarified. We sat looking at each other for a long, silent moment. Then muffled through the door we heard the voice of one of his colleagues.

"You find Heero's family and figure this mess out!"

"Duo, what have I told you about eavesdropping?"

tbc.


	4. 4

Title: History of Blue Eyes

Author: Something Like Human

Rating: teen (13+)

Warnings: Post EW, Preventers, Author resurrection of characters and tweaking of history/timeline, decided to make some strong hints at some relationships in this fic of the yaoi variety. I had tried to keep it out of there, but I can't help it. It's just how I see the boys.

I abandoned this fic years ago and I regretted it. I am bringing it back to life now.

Continuing with Odin's POV

I watched as my son opened the door the conference room. On the other side, seated on the floor was Agent Night. He had a small listening device poised to where it had been pressed against the door. He looked up at his comrade with a rather unrepentant look on his face. Actually, he had a rather cheeky grin. I did not know whether to be mad at the kid for eavesdropping or laugh at his antics.

I took a moment to assess the young man sitting there while he argued with Junior. He was lanky in his dark clothing. I had noticed that there was no uniform being used with this group of Preventers. I had seen other wearing them in the hallways and in other departments but none of the elite group was wearing any semblance of a uniform. What also intrigued me was his very lengthy braid that was looped over his shoulder and pooled in his lap. It was impossible to tell exactly how long his hair was but I was better it was longer than Merquise's blond locks. I could guess that this American accented youth was also a former Gundam Pilot if he were in this group with my son. I could surmise then that there was a lot more going on with Agent Night than the cheeky smile and the devil-may-care attitude. Noin had stated that he was their stealth expert which was a bit baffling to me. He was so far, the loudest and most animated of the group. I would have to ask her again about that. I am thinking that I had heard her wrong or that she had said it backwards. I had an easier time believing that the quiet Asian youth would be the one more suited for stealth.

Then again, looks could be deceiving. I heard the Asian agent storming down the hallway barking at Agent Night in Cantonese. I never really had an ear for that language but the context was clear. He was berating Agent Night for listening in on their comrade. I listened as the three young men conversed back and forth briefly, and surprisingly, each in their own native tongue and sometimes each others. It was a dizzying conversation trying to keep up. Heero spoke sharply in Japanese to stop the other two bickering. They both turned to him and were talking over each other in Cantonese and slang-ridden English. Heero glanced over his shoulder at me and then spoke back rapidly in Cantonese. The brat remembered that I couldn't speak the language. To my surprise, the seated youth slipped into it effortlessly as well. I would not have pegged him for a linguist.

I heard the door at the other end of the conference room open. Noin poked her head in and motioned me to follow her out that direction. I took one last look at the boys who were still conversing in a language that I could not understand and I turned and left.

I realized when I entered the room that she was in; it was a surveillance room to the conference room. I found it odd but not entirely surprising. I watched as she sat back down in the chair at the monitor.

"Does this camera have sound?" I asked her hoping to hear if they switched back to a language that I could comprehend.

"It wouldn't matter, Sir," she replied. "They know that they are being monitored so they won't talk like normal people."

"What do you mean by that?" I watched the boys on the screen fully enter the room and close the door behind them. They were still talking but even trying to read their lips was difficult. It all seemed like gibberish to me.

"As you already figured out, they are the Pilots," she said with an air of certainty that I would understand what that meant. I did so she went on. "The five of them all come from different places and cultures and originally spoke different languages. I'm not sure when it started, if it was when they all first met each other, which was rather late in the war, or after the war. They can flow between their languages, mixing and matching what suits them at the time. They only do it with each other and as far as I know, they all understand it."

"So they each speak in their own language?"

"Not always," she clarified. "They use whatever words or grammar suits them at the time. It's perplexing to watch. I know a few languages but I can't even keep up with them. Zechs does better than I do but even he can get left behind by them when they want to."

"Junior only spoke Japanese, Russian, and English when I left him. I see that he picked up Cantonese somewhere along the way."

"He also speaks French, some Spanish, and Arabic. I'm pretty sure he learned Arabic after the war started."

"Really?" I was impressed. My son dutifully learned the original three languages as a child because I felt those were the most important ones in the Colonies. I could not teach him Cantonese but was going to guess that he learned it from the Chinese pilot. Arabic was hard since it was only used in parts of the L4 cluster. I knew that there had been a pilot from L4 but had assumed it was just a child picked by the Colony and perhaps not one that was raised there.

"You really have no idea who these boys are, do you?" She said looking at me over her shoulder.

I shrugged. "I followed the Wars, as much as I could. Since I was supposed to be 'dead' and all, I couldn't use any of my old contacts. I heard what I could about it from the media but that was about it."

"I'm surprised. I would have thought that Odin Lowe, the man who's gun started the War, didn't follow it more closely than that."

"Young woman," I said rising up to my full height and looking down on her in the chair. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe I did not want a war to happen? That maybe I regretted what I had started and wanted no part of it."

She sat there for a few moments. Her dark blue eyes were wide as she contemplated what I had said. "I guess I had never thought of it before. I was only going off of the stories about you from my days in the OZ Academy. I should know by now that not everything they told us was the absolute truth."

My eyes were drawn to the monitor again. I was watching the three young men interact. My son's posture was still very stiff with his shoulders set and his eyes hard. The long haired one was almost leaning on him though and did not look phased that his companion was angry. The Chinese agent was the one talking but his back was to the camera. He was gesturing between the three of them though.

"So why are you monitoring them like this?" I asked the former OZ officer.

Noin chuckled. "Those three are very close. When one of them is going through something, the other two jump right in. Unfortunately, it's not always to calm the other one down. It's about 50/50 whether they will calm Heero down or join him in a fight. I'm just making sure that they won't destroy anything. The last time Wu Fei was upset about something, he started trashing the conference room. Heero and Duo didn't stop him, oh no, Heero jumped in to start sparring with him and Duo cheered them both on. They were on clean up duty and their pay was docked to cover the damages."

"They're really good friends, though, aren't they?" I asked. I saw from their body language on the screen that they seemed very comfortable standing close to each other. The American one, I assumed he was named Duo since the Chinese youth would probably fit the Chinese name, had his arm draped around my son's shoulders at this point. I thought it was odd because Heero never liked much physical contact even as a child. His mother had held him when he was very young but he never even warmed up to me in the six years that I had him. He did not like being touched.

"My understanding is that they consider each other family. All five of them really," she replied with a smile. "I don't know all of their backgrounds but most of them don't have nor have they ever had any family. They are also the only five kids in the Earthsphere with the same life experiences as each other."

"I guess you could say that I don't really know who any of them are," I replied. "Heero has the face and personality of my son but ten years is over half of his life. I was only part of his life for about 6 years. I am beginning to see that I don't know him at all."

"It's good then that you get a chance to get to know your son, then." She turned back to fully watch the surveillance screen. She continued speaking without looking at me."He hasn't tried to kill you yet, has he?"

I regarded the young woman's wry expression. "No, but he threatened me on more than one occasion as a little kid."

"Then you're probably safe," she laughed. "Duo there with his arm around him, shot Heero the first time they met, and Heero would routinely threaten him. I'm pretty sure a threat was made last week even."

"Oh really?" I said regarding the figures on the screen again. I could see that my son's posture had slowly relaxed into the other pilot's touch. He did not look as tense and I had to admit, he had not tried getting away from him either. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Just to warn you that Heero tends to initially push people away from him, probably to protect himself, but it doesn't mean that he will keep doing so. Duo was persistent and it paid off. So, I wouldn't be discouraged if I were you. At least he hasn't pulled a gun on you yet."

Tbc.


End file.
